Tarot Card of the Day- January 24 2010

IV of Swords

Thoughts war with thoughts. Well, maybe not war as much as dance. They swirl around here and there without ease. Thoughts of home with happiness turmoiled. Kids, Schools, Teachers, Doctors, Social Workers, Art, Spirituality, gods, men, politics, philosophy, aliens, 2012,  Math, Clients Art? Art all orbit and combine with reckless abandon. Research on the tree hanging from  its branches locating gods so that I can locate myself? HUH? How many angels can dance on the head of a sephiroth? All depends on which one and what order of angels? How did that angel get into my pyjamas, I’ll never know yet I will survive. Other places fun is had and ale is drinken, here there is garbage that needs removing and decisions that need making on how best to handle kids, work and housecleaning.

STOP!

I need to stop my mind, to rest, to slow it down. Order can be put to chaos and yet the thoughts resist.  Meditation not medication can win me surcease or a few moments peace. Contemplate  Infin-naught. Tho, there is that in me which loves the potential of a cluttered mine for who knows when two discrete things will come into alignment and show me something new. Without that, with a mind newly organized, with each idea put into it “proper” place, do I face stagnation?

Still a respite, a chance to go within-to find peace and therefore become a happy medium.

IV of Swords Rider-Waite deck

Chesed in Air

Astrological

♃ in ♎

Jupiter in Libra
I Ching ____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
_________
24 Fu “Return”

(The Turning Point)

Quick Thoughts

1) Innocence combined with Intelligence can lead to enlightenment. They do seem to be pretty difficult to coordinate tho.
2) I find that it can be inspiring to see every person I encounter as a manifestation of Godhead. However saying “Thank you God” vocally when receiving change at the corner store can get you some really strange looks
3) “…and still I persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis” –Edgar Pangborn. Is it a measure of honesty to hit the send button on email with such abandon?
4) Raising kids is a misnomer. The best thing that any of us can do is raise ourselves and share it with them. Then get out of the way
5) If you think you have it all figured out…..WRONG!!!! The universe is always stranger and more wonderful than we ever expect it to be.

2010-The Year We Make Contact

…or so the old movie tagline read. Interesting in that 2009 felt like the year I woke up (or perhaps only parts of me that slept for way too long)
ah 2009, I kiss your withered cheeks and bow to your aged wisdom. Namo year that was and equally respectful greetings to the year that stands before us.
My apologies if the entry seems a bit disjointed. I am writing it out without planning so much beforehand. I seem to be free styling more and more these days, with the videos and art that come through me as well as how I conduct myself it seems. Perhaps I have finally become trust-worthy enough that I even trust myself a bit more. Perhaps I trust that or those that express themselves through me. So many ways of saying the same things. Yet the words we choose are key. Saying things one way can find you honoured, another way ignored and another way vilified or thought insane and yet the idea behind the words may be the same.
Earlier this evening i was thinking of those maps you see at rest stops on the highway. Usually there is an arrow pointing to the spot on the map that indicates the viewers location with words that state “You are Here”. I found myself wondering where the arrow would be pointing for me at this point. I then realized how relative it was and that the question applied in so many ways.
(To be Continued)

Singing the Blues

I know better than to feel this way
and yet the storm comes thru
grey skies raining down on my hea
I would laugh
and on some level do
tho right here right now I be singing’ the blues

None of this is real
it matters not
electronic worse of emptiness
giving comfort?
Yeah I suppose
thus I subscribe and watch bemused as I sing the blues

No cause because
its just spiritual weather
that has me state the state I’m in
Tomorrow I’ll wake up
better if not gleeful
but tonight left or right I be singing the blues….

Homeward Bound

I was just watching on youTube a discussion about what song they should play as a duet and the song that popped into my head is Homeward Bound. I pulled a tarot card for an idea for a topic that I should write on tonight and the card that came up was the five of cups. The one I used to call the spilt milk card. The card in most versions shows a man sorrowing over three spilt cups, ignoring the two that are still upright.  To me it normally  carries the meaning that one gets caught up in the samsara , and forgetting that what happens to us day to day and our reactions to it tend to be illusory.  This seems especially true when dealing with family whom one has grown up with and now returns to see. So often, we get caught up in the illusion that people stay the same and that we deal with the same people we have known, Parents, siblings, cousins. We may feel that we have grown as people but fall into interacting with our family members in the same old way, falling into the same patterns. Then very often we feel a sense of loss as if any personal growth or direction does not get honoured. What we don’t realize may be that we ourselves in our interactions aren’t honouring either the changes and accomplishments that we have made or that of our family members. You can even call this syndrome “How can I recognize the divinity in each person when my cousin or brother-in-law (for example) pushes my buttons. Then we beat ourselves up over the fact that we do not reveal our own growth and maybe we haven’t come that far. The truth is we have and it is just being tested a bit. No one can destroy experience. It is still there, there is just more that is necessary.. We just need to relax into it a bit.

“…when the joke’s on you”

“I know: it sounds so simple, and it’s so hard to do
To laugh when the joke’s on you”

so sings Spider Robinson in one of his songs (The lyrics to the song can be found in the novel Callahan’s Legacy, a book well worth seeking out) and tonight the song’s kind of up in my face. I find it so easy to advise people when they’re down or taking things too seriously that we don’t have to identify with our emotions. Just treat them like weather patterns across the face of our soul and that they too will pass. Words so easy to say and I do believe them I do. I just find it a little more difficult when the emotions are mine.
Free-floating anxiety. Sorrow. Wounded Pride, Resentment, Anger and of course the granddaddy of them all Fear. I can name the weather patterns just fine. Like anything else these emotions will pass through and I will regain equilibrium hopefully before I go to CT next week to celebrate American Thanksgiving at the Rosenberg compound.
I laugh at the knowledge that part of this seems to be associated with the weather as are most of my major emotional storms. Six days of rain, some really interesting and challenging Astrological Patterns (not a cause as much as a reflection. All causing a mini-Tower like effect.
Naming things help. Also knowing that this will pass also.
All part of clearing out the junk….

Random Bits – 48 Redux

OK, OK, I didn’t know it was loaded :). When I turned 48 a little over three weeks ago, I conceived of a project of sorts and wrote about it here (http://grosenberg.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/random-bits-48/). I would make 48 short films, I thought and put them together into a series of videos, little pieces that would celebrate different sides of myself and allow some unique self-expression. It would also be a tribute of sorts to the enjoyment I’ve had on YouTube watching people’s videos and creating my own. I foolishly thought I could do it in 48 hours, I got over that one in a hurry.
Today, 23 days later, I finished. The 48 random bits make up about 10 videos, express certain aspects of my life well, others perhaps not as well as I might like, tho definitely not less than I found necessary. I got to experiment a bit, and have some fun
So what now. Am I over the whole video thing? No I don’t think so. Not sure where I’ll take it from here. Maybe some more tarot pieces, Maybe some story-telling. I am having too much fun to stop

Escape

I love watching Criss Angel and when I was younger I loved watching Doug Henning and reading about Houdini. I get amazed at how they plan and master one death-defying escape only to start planning the next even more apparently dangerous one.
“I escaped from a safe, now let’s take the safe and submerge it in water” I believe that there are times in our life when we do the same thing.
We put ourselves into life situations that are somewhat traplike and challenging. Some of us do it in our personal lives and relationships. Others do it in their jobs. We find a way to navigate one set of problems and win free. We acquire life knowledge and a sense of liberation and then…we get ourselves caught up in an even more complex web. Or should I say we weave an even more complex web. On some level we know what we are doing. Oh we can try to blame others, fates, the gods, karma but we put in our lives what we need to help us grow no matter how painful. We are all akin to Anansi, the African Spider trickster god, weaving the tale and occasionally catching ourselves up in it, for how else do we have the impetus to grow?
Richard Bach in his book illusions says:
“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands
You seek problems because you need their gifts”

and we do need the gifts of the problems we set up otherwise we wouldn’t have drawn them into our lives in the first place.
and as we have created the problem, we also have created the solution. It may not be apparent, it may appear as one more thing appearing to attack us just as the sword points seem to be attacking the figure in the Eight of Swords tarot card below, but that same sword point with just a twist can cut through the web that binds us Of course we tend to blind ourselves from seeing the solutions in front of us…..Well I guess it makes life more interesting.
So here’s to Criss, Doug and Harry, they symbolize one of our strongest drives, the drive to liberate ourselves and thus transcend.

VIII Swords

Rabbit Hole Musing

What if Alice didn’t fall down the rabbit hole? What if she ran to the edge and jumped in, ready to leave her Victorian life behind?
What if The Fool does not fall off the cliff, but jumps freely ready to land wherever it may take him?
The rabbit hole calls
Hidden knowledge waits within
Shall I put plugs in my ear and resist the call
or do I move forward fearlessly
Is coming back again for sure?
or is it only one way?
Home, love, anchors, foundation
strong ties hold me tight
yet still I hear the call
forward back
equal pulls in opposite directions
ecstatic agony
Do I heed the call
or do I creep ever closer
until I accidentally
f
a
l
l

Gary down the rabbit hole